Now Lumen Christi College, the site was the location of a 'casino' for Earl Bishop Hervey in the late eighteenth century (the term casino in 18th century Italian means little house and was often used to describe a small classical residence within a wider estate). The site was sold to the Catholic Church in 1869, for the development of a seminary, and the three story house on the left of this drawing was constructed by 1877. The North Wing followed in 1893. In 1898, the museum library and recreation hall (far left) was completed. The composition was finished in 1941 with the demolition of the casino (which had been converted to a chapel) and the construction of the current chapel. This results in a memorable Gothic form of spikey roofs and dormers on the top of a hill.
Following the 1947 Education Act, attendance at the school trebled and this resulted in the erection of temporary classrooms in the school grounds (one of which was my Dad's maths class for much of the 1960's). The school opened a new site at Buncrana Road in 1973 with this building continuing as the junior school until, with a further extension at Buncrana Road, the school left completely in 1997. A co-educational grammar school - Lumen Christi- was then established in these buildings.